


Bait and Switch

by mrsreeder



Series: The Thick of It meets Doctor Who [2]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: Bodyswap, Gen, yes i really did that lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:07:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28833894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrsreeder/pseuds/mrsreeder
Summary: Malcolm alias The Doctor and his new companion Ollie encounter a weird alien on another planet. And that's where things get complicated....
Series: The Thick of It meets Doctor Who [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2114163
Kudos: 1





	Bait and Switch

**Author's Note:**

> Here it is, the trope of all crackfic tropes: the bodyswap! Well, my take on it came out beyond silly, but I had lots of fun writing it. Mixing up two character who are as different as Malcolm and Ollie is just the best thing ever :D And I just love the scenes in Malcolm's office, haha. By the way, I don't think you need real knowledge of Doctor Who to enjoy this story. I could have written it as a pure TTOI story, but bringing in DW was a convenient excuse for the bodyswapping, haha.

The TARDIS materialized itself in Malcolm's office. Just when it was done the door flew open and Malcolm came running out, with an unusually panicky look on his face.  
"This can't be true, this is just a bad dream, nothing of this is real..."  
He was followed by Ollie, who was muttering swear words under his breath. "This has to be the most fucking stupid thing that ever happened to me in all my life. But no wonder, I just knew travelling with him would bring bad luck...!"  
An unsuspecting onlooker might have wondered about their behavior. It was almost like the both of them had switched personalities. And he wouldn't be entirely wrong about that...

One travel through time and space earlier...

Malcolm and Ollie were on the run. Well, rather 'the Doctor and Ollie', but as long as he was travelling with the fucking knitted scarf from DoSAC as his new companion, the Doctor couldn't really shake off his Malcolm persona anyway. And Ollie was apparently too stupid to remember the difference, as he stubbornly kept referring to him as 'Malcolm'. So he really had just stopped caring about what he was called at the moment. Anyway, at the moment the both of them were on the run. On a small planet in a galaxy far away from earth. That was obviously more important than any reflections about names right now.  
"Malcolm! Just what the fuck is this...thing following us?" They had hidden behind a big rock and Ollie was peeking over it, looking for their pursuer. And there he was, looking around in all directions, but as of yet he hadn't spotted them.  
Malcolm didn't react, so Ollie got his head down behind the rock again and nudged him with an elbow. "Hello? Earth to Malcolm?"  
"Would you just shut up for a moment? I can't think when you're blabbering all the time!"  
"I don't..." But Ollie quickly cut off his sentence when he saw Malcolm's angry glance.  
"If it'll make you shut up, let me tell you that I have no idea what kind of creature that is. Which is why we're hiding, as you might have noticed, you annoying twat..."  
"You don't know?! I thought you're basically all-knowing when it comes to aliens. Or at least your endless confidence suggested just that... Oh fuck, I think he's coming closer...!"  
Malcolm took a look around the rock and cautiously watched the weird creature following them. "Even a stupid-ass fucker like you should have enough of a brain to understand that no one can know everything, alright?"  
Ollie sighed. "Fine, just say it if you don't know, but there's still no need to insult me..."  
"Oh come on, aren't you used to that by now?"  
"That isn't something anyone should get used to..."  
After keeping watch for a while Malcolm thought for a moment. Could they make it back to the TARDIS before the creature would get them? But that was really their only chance, as he really had no idea what their adversary exactly was. He grabbed Ollie's arm.  
"Come on, we're out of here. Just run as fast as you can, hear me?"  
"Outrunning a dangerous alien who probably wants to kill us? Yeah, sounds like a great plan!" Ollie jeered.  
"Spare me the stupid comments and save your breath for running. If he gets you, you're fucked. I won't help you then."  
"Oh, great, thanks for nothing..."  
"Shut up and start running when I tell you to."  
He took a last look back and saw that the creature was dangerously close to their hideout. About time to get out of here, he decided.  
"Alright...ready or not, we have to go. Run!" And so they did.

They were taking the distance in strides, but when they had almost reached the TARDIS, the inevitable happened: Ollie stumbled over a small rock and almost fell. He managed to get up again in just two or three seconds, but that small delay was enough to make a difference. Malcolm had also stopped shortly when he noticed that Ollie wasn't right behind him anymore and so neither of them had reached the safety of the TARDIS yet. In that exact moment the creature - which was now pretty close behind them - unleashed some sort of beam. Malcolm and Ollie got enveloped in its light and....nothing happened. Or that's what it seemed, but the two of them couldn't muse about that just now. They took the last few metres to safety in a stride and slammed the door closed behind them.  
Ollie wheezed heavily. "Oh fuck, Malcolm, I thought I was done for..."  
Wait...his voice had sounded really weird in his own ears when he said that. And it got even weirder when Malcolm started talking. He was also catching his breath, but that wasn't an explanation.  
"Fucking moron, you can't even run a few metres without stumbling...you almost killed us both..."  
In this moment Malcolm noticed that there was something off. Both of them looked at each other...and both of them recoiled at what they saw. Because...they both saw their own face, without looking into a mirror. And that could really only mean one thing...  
Malcolm came to his senses again first, while Ollie was still gaping like a fish. "Fuck! So that's what that thing was...some sort of body-swapper. Bloody fucking hell, of all the possibilities..."  
But as he was used to lots of weird thing, he already sprang into action again. He started the TARDIS. "Hey, twatweazel, did your brain stop working or why are you still standing there like an idiot? But that can't really be, since you've got my brain right now."  
Ollie just gave him a look of utter desperation, but said nothing.  
"Oh fine, just keep standing there if you want to. I'll bring us back to Earth in the meantime."

Back to the present...

So they really had swapped bodies. Well, to Malcolm aka the Doctor the feeling of having a new body and a new look wasn't really anything special - he had had his share of experience with regenerations after all -, but he wasn't too sure whether he was really fine with suddenly looking like someone who he didn't respect at all. And Ollie of all people, to top it off. "Looking like some Quentin Blake illustration definitely is new for me. Can't say I like it though," he said to himself while he sat down behind his office desk.  
Ollie - in Malcolm's body - was meanwhile bordering on hysterics. He was running up and down the room, muttering to himself. Until Malcolm slammed his - or rather Ollie's - fist on the table and shouted: "Stop running around like a fucking easter bunny! Imagine someone coming in and seeing you, they'd think it's me finally losing my marbles!" He noticed that didn't come out as imposing as he had expected - well, he had said it with Ollie's voice, after all.  
However, Malcolm's body with Ollie in it still stopped in his tracks. "W-what? Someone might come in? Please, anything but that! Malcolm, do something already! Change us back! I can't stand this fucking shit...!"  
Malcolm made a face. "Just stop the fucking whining already! Seeing and hearing myself bleating around like that is beyond painful!"  
"I can't say I'm too thrilled about hearing myself talking in a Scottish accent either, you know! Even though it sounds pretty cool...," Ollie had to admit.  
"As if that's remotely as bad as my situation! We're talking about you - you of all people! - occupying my body. People are respecting me, and that's for a reason. Who would ever respect me if I was running around like a fucking headless chicken while whining like an old crone?"  
"I'm not occupying anything and I'll get back to my body at once if you tell me how! I don't want you running around pretending to be me either!"  
Malcolm leaned back in the chair and sighed. "Well, that's the problem, I have no idea how..."  
"WHAT!?"  
"Oh, shut up and let me finish. I have no idea...yet! I'm working on it. I let the TARDIS run a scan of our bodies and it should come up with some hint about what that creature was and how it mixed us up anytime soon."  
"Are you sure?" Ollie said with hope in his voice.  
"Yes, I am. Well, if even the TARDIS can't analyze it we're entirely fucked, but I don't think that'll happen. So just shut up for now, right?"  
Well, those were pretty good news and so Ollie stopped pacing through the room for good and sat down on a chair.  
"So, we....just wait for now?"  
"Exactly. Just take a seat until then. Good boy."  
"I'd prefer it if you wouldn't treat me like a dog, Malcolm...especially not if you're doing it with my own voice and face."  
"Oh come on, I would never treat a dog the way I treat you..."

And then the thing Ollie had feared the most: someone knocked on the door. "Fuck! Malcolm, what do we do now?"  
"I will do nothing, but you will pretend to be me and get rid of whoever it is."  
"But..."  
"No buts, come on!"  
"Oh, fuck it all!" Ollie cleared his throat. "Uh...yes? Who is it?"  
The door opened and Julius peeked into the room. "Oh, so you are here, Malcolm. Listen, I really need to talk to you about that one policy paper you tried to foist on the PM yesterday..."  
Ollie interrupted him quickly. "Yes, that's fucking fine, Julius, but I've got no fucking time on my hands right now, so please fuck off to your office already, right?"  
Julius looked at him, quite irritated. "I don't know, but somehow you're weird today, Malcolm. It must be your way of talking. You did sound so...English."  
"Uh, erm...och! Ah dinnae ken what the fuck you're talking about, you wee baldy! And now, er, really, don't be a blether and fuck off already, aye?"  
"Alright, so...you're obviously not in a good shape today. I will come back later, if that's fine with you?" With that, Julius left the room in a hurry. When the door had closed behind him, Malcolm sighed. "That was the worst impression of me I've ever seen. Do you really think I talk like that?"  
"No, but I'd like to see you doing a good impression of me! I bet you can't do that!"  
"Can't be that hard, can it?" Malcolm put his feet on the table. "Just watch and see. 'Hi, I'm Oliver Reeder and I'm the biggest Oxbridge twat ever! I also wear cheap suits and I would shag the entire opposition if I could benefit from it!' Well, satisfied?"  
"I clearly wouldn't say a single thing of this shit! And you made me sound pretty gay there..."  
"Come on, it's not like you are one hundred percent straight, or do you think no one knew about you and Dan Miller...?"  
"I don't know what you are insinuating, but I never had that kind of relationship with Dan Miller!"  
"Right, son, if you say so..."

Time was creeping slowly as they waited for the TARDIS to finish its scan. Suddenly Malcolm had an idea.  
"Oh, there's one thing I always wanted to try..."  
Malcolm raised his hands, took off Ollie's glasses and immediately squinted heavily.  
"Holy fuck, that's pretty bad. Let me guess, you watched lots of porn in your teenage years. No, you probably still do until today, right?"  
"What's got watching porn to do with my glasses? Also, might I ask why were you apparently obsessed with my eyesight for some time now?"  
Malcolm deliberately ignored the second part of the question. "Don't you know the popular belief about porn being bad for your eyes? And for the brain too. That would actually explain so much about you, it's scary..."  
"Oh, fuck off, Malcolm...you might have noticed that I actually went to university and I'm working for the government, so don't paint me as some sort of brainless porn addict..."  
Their squabble was interrupted because a moment later the door opened again and Malcolm's secretary Sam was looking into the room.  
"I just wanted to tell you that Mrs Murray is here. I'll send her in if that is alright?"  
Ollie was too stunned for a sensible reaction and so he just nodded. Sam disappeared from the room again.  
Malcolm sat up straight. "Fuck, I forgot Nicola was coming here today..."  
"What? You can't forget about things like that!"  
"I'd like to see you maintaining the balance between being a timelord and keeping this fucking lot of idiots you call a government on the right track!"  
"Well, I'm no timelord, so no thanks."  
"And thankfully you will never be one, or else the world might end. Well, there's no need to worry, because I don't have to deal with Nicola anyway."  
"And why would that be?"  
"Because you are the one who will do that!"  
"I should have seen that one coming..."

There was no time for a longer debate, as Nicola already entered the room in this very moment.  
"Hello, Malcolm. So...what do you want from me?" She laughed nervously and noticed that there was one more person in the room.  
"Ollie? What are you doing here? And...why are you sitting on Malcolm's chair?"  
Of course she didn't know that it was in fact the real owner of the chair sitting on it, but that only made it harder for Malcolm to make up an explanation quickly. Instead Ollie decided to break the painful moment of silence. "We...we're just rehearsing for the time when I...uh, when Ollie will take over my job one day!"  
Nicola gave him a weird look. "You're planning to give your position to Ollie? For real, Malcolm?"  
"Er, yes, why wouldn't I? He's a, er, promising young man with a great career ahead of him."  
Malcolm obviously had a different idea about the end of his career and if looks could kill Ollie would probably have dropped dead at this very moment. Instead he just said: "Oh, Malcolm, I think you're greatly overestimating me, I'm really not good enough to do your job..."  
"Oh, but I think I....you are!"  
"Nooo, I'm really not!"  
Nicola was more and more weirded out by their exchange. "Er...Malcolm? Do you still need me, or should I go and stop disturbing your little chamber drama?"  
"Oh." Ollie coughed. "Yes, I needed you for...er, Malc....Ollie, would you remind me of why I had Nicola come here?"  
Malcolm wasn't in an especially benevolent mood though. "But Malcolm, you didn't tell me about that!"  
Ollie's thoughts regarding Malcolm were anything but nice in this moment. "Oh, right, so I didn't... Er... Well, to be honest...it was about a policy paper which just got slammed by the PM. So I actually don't need you here anymore, Nicola." Well, that was a pretty good improvisation, he thought.  
Nicola didn't look too happy though.  
"Well, okay, so I came here for nothing if you really don't need me...  
But anyway - I do need you for something, Ollie. If you're done here, you could come right back to DoSAC with me."  
It was purely the force of habit, but Ollie immediately responded to her. "Yes, fine, I'm coming..." When he noticed his mistake, Nicola was already looking at him curiously.  
"I said 'Ollie', not 'Malcolm', so why did you..." She eyed him suspiciously. "I don't know, but there is something weird about the both of you today."  
"I have no idea what you are talking about..."  
She came really close to Ollie and stared long and hard at him. "Are you really Malcolm?"  
Ollie tried to clear the situation with his attempt at a Scottish accent yet again. "I'm obviously Malcolm, who else would I be? And now lassie, get lost and don't be a scunner, aye?"  
But Nicola was so weirded out by that weird fake-scottish statement that she promptly took a few steps backwards....only to make an exclamation of pain because her head had bumped into something. Something that had been invisible until now. She turned around and wondered: "What? Where is this police box coming from? It wasn't there a moment ago!"  
Malcolm facepalmed. "I can't believe this woman, she managed to smash the perception filter of the TARDIS with her fucking head. And that even though she's utterly useless in every other aspect..."  
"I did what? Ollie, what are you saying? That's rude! Or...are you even Ollie? That sounded definitely more like something Malcolm would say than what that weird fake version," she pointed at Ollie here, "just said to me. It's entirely stupid and I'm probably just losing my mind instead, but...is it possible that you, er, switched bodies? Or anything in that direction...?"  
Malcolm made a grand gesture. "Ding, ding, ding, you just won the grand prize!"  
Meanwhile Ollie was shocked. "Malcolm! But...you would have to explain her the whole thing, should we really tell her the truth about us getting switched?"  
"You just told her, fucking twit..."  
"...oh."  
"I have to admit the two of you would make a great comedy double act, but could you please give me a clear answer? Am I losing my mind or not?"  
"One might argue differently, but no, you aren't losing your mind. We did switch bodies."  
"But...how on earth...?"  
Ollie chimed in. "It wasn't on earth, in fact. It happened on some weird planet whose name I forgot and..."  
"That's fine, Malcolm...erm, Ollie, but I mean....how? Why is something like that even possible? That's something straight out of a SciFi film!"  
Well, now a lenghty explanation was due. Damn Nicola and her intuition, Malcolm thought. If only she would use that in some political situations, when it would actually matter. But no, of course she had to use it to make matters even worse instead.  
When he was done explaning things Nicola was sitting down on one of the chairs in Malcolm's office, holding her head in her hands. "I think I only understood half of this shit you just told me, but...you're basically an alien, Malcolm?"  
"Yes, you're right. I did just explain that bit, though..."  
"I really wonder why I didn't notice that earlier. Some of the things you did before were clearly not human... Anyway...so you're taking Ollie with you when you're travelling? Would it...would it maybe be possible for me to come with you too, just once?"  
"Sure, why not? But let's also invite everyone from your office while we're at it, right? I'm not a fucking taxi service, you know!"  
"But...you're taking Ollie with you...I mean, Ollie? Really?"  
"Well, I seriously regret that decision. Look what the fucking twat has gotten me into..."  
They had totally ignored Ollie, who was wringing his hands in desperation. "Uh...hello? Could you maybe not talk about me like I'm not here? I also didn't get us into anything!"  
Just then a beeping sound emerged from the TARDIS.  
"Great, she's done!" Malcolm got up and went to check the results of the scan. Ollie and Nicola followed him inside.  
"That's....amazing! And it's also..."  
"...much bigger on the inside. Yeah, I know, please spare me that fucking standard comment, everyone says that."  
Nicola shot him an angry look which he didn't even notice.  
"What's really important are the results. Ooooh, so that's how it is! It's an...oh, you wouldn't be able to pronounce its name anyway, so I actually don't need to tell you. Anyway, the TARDIS also analyzed a way to switch us back."  
"Really?"  
"No, I just said that so I get to see you looking disappointed with my own face!" And that was exactly what Ollie was doing just now.  
"Oh, come on, of course I know what to do now! So where's my...oh!"  
He went over to Ollie and pulled his sonic screwdriver out of a pocket.  
"I just need to make some adjustments, like that...and done, so let's try it!"  
He pointed the sonic at Ollie, a odd noise came from it...and then the both of them found themselves back in their own bodies.  
"Oh, thank goodness, I'm back to being myself!" cheered Ollie.  
"I don't get why you would be happy about that, honestly..."

Well, now that everyone was back to normal it was time to do some boring everyday work again. Just as Nicola and Ollie were about to leave Malcolm's office an idea came to Ollie and he stopped in the doorway.  
"Er...Malcolm?"  
"Yes, what's up?"  
"Didn't you tell me recently that this perception filter thingy the TARDIS uses can be used on people too?"  
"Well of course it can, why wouldn't it?"  
"But then...you could have just used that filter on us and no one would have known about the switch-up!"  
"....well, I could have done that, but it was more fun this way."  
"Just admit you forgot about it, Malcolm..."  
"Oh, fuck off, whizkid. You didn't think of it either. And what did you expect? I had to work with your fucking puny human brain, so you couldn't expect me to do wonders."  
"Yeah, obviously my poor little porn-afflicted brain is at fault here... Well, thanks for the nice adventure and for letting me almost die, Malcolm. See you!"  
"Alright, and now for real: fuck the fuck off!"

Yeah, that really had been quite the adventure. Travelling with Ollie actually wasn't half bad, he thought. His stupid reactions made the whole thing really fun. And so Malcolm couldn't help but look forward to their next travel through space and time...


End file.
